AU: Genderbent Perfection
by Rumpelstiltskin und Vladimir
Summary: As you can guess from the title, everyone is the opposite sex! Just the way of the universe. And also, there's an invisible killer among them. Who? What? Where? WHEN? Well, maybe not. But you get the idea. *CHAPTER 2 UP*
1. Chapter 1

**This story was actually started LAST year, I believe, but we kinda jumped off the train and went back to our MixmasterRevolution series. I found this the other day and we decided Hey! Let's continue!**

**Anywho, yeah, female males and male females follow. Have fun.**

***DISCLAIMER* RV makes no claim to own Tremors or its characters. They are the property of S.S. Wilson and ScyFy Entertainment. No profit is made from this writing.**

* * *

The 'paranoid' survivalist gazed out over the town from a pair of binoculars. Perfection had yet to start to bustle with its miniscule morning activity, but the gun enthusiast had already began the usual rounds of the valley. Things in the desert were quiet and normal.

Berta Gummer was suspicious.

_**"Good Morning, B,"**_ a familiar voice floated through the radio in a sing-song manner. _**"Are you gonna sit up there spying on us all day or come down and get some breakfast? J.D.'s making his famous omelets."**_

Berta looked down in shock at her radio. "Skylar! How do you know where I am?" she asked, shifting her gaze towards the woman's Quonset hut and seeing her monster-hunting partner waving at her.

_**"Come on, B, you are **_**way**_** too predictable," Skylar laughed. "Hurry up before your eggs get cold!"**_ She raised her radio and turned towards the general store.

Berta rolled her eyes underneath her dark sunglasses. She put her radio away and started back towards town.

She had to admit: she was looking forward to J.D.'s omelets.

J.D. flipped yet another jumble of eggs, onions, peppers, and other secret ingredients, making sure the omelet was fully cooked. Satisfied, he slid it onto a plate and set it down on the counter in front of Skylar.

"Finally!" Skylar squirted her usual amount of ketchup on (which was way too much in J.D.'s opinion) and dug in. "Mmm, I _love_ your omelets, J.D.," she mumbled through a mouth full of food.

J.D. laughed as he started another one. "You say that every time, Sky."

"Well, it's true."

Berta pushed open the door, entering Chang's market. "Hey, J.D." she greeted the younger man. "I'll take a coffee and an omelet. You know how I like 'em."

"So, B," Skylar patted the stool next to her, eyes twinkling like they always did when she was extremely curious about something. "How was survival class yesterday?"

"About as good as expected," the woman mumbled, "when it's a class full of teenagers."

"_And_ one older guy," Skylar reminded her. "Who was _definitely_ nicer than any normal guy."

"Hey!" J.D. gave her a mock frown over his shoulder.

Skylar just grinned at him and turned back to Berta. "So, what'd you do to him?"

"Treated him like any other student," Berta replied calmly.

"Yeah right!" Skylar laughed. "With the lines he was givin' you?"

J.D. rolled his eyes as he gave Berta her omelet. "You take too much fun out of Berta torturing poor, defenseless guys," he accused.

Berta put on a wry grin. "Well, I'm sure that guy enjoyed cleaning up after the rest of the class. I mean, he did say he'd like to spend more time with me."

Skylar giggled as the doors to the store suddenly opened and a dark haired young woman entered, video camera in hand. "Hey, J.D.! I got more footage of the invisibat!" she said excitedly.

"Great," J.D. smiled, not quite hitting the enthusiastic mark.

The girl offered a goofy grin. "At least it didn't hit me in the head this time," she said, moving stuff around on the counter.

"Loretta," J.D. complained, shooing her away and placing everything back in their proper place.

"Is he-er, it, still at the old barn?" Skylar asked.

"Yeah," she nodded excitedly, "I've seen 'im flying around near there too."

"I wonder if there's any more of 'em," Skylar said thoughtfully. "It seems so tame so far, it'd be cool if we could actually keep one of the mutations as a pet."

Berta scrunched up her nose. "I don't think that would be the wisest idea," she said.

Skylar rolled her eyes. "Party pooper."

Berta rolled her eyes at Skylar.

Loretta leaned against the counter, towards the store owner. "J.D., I just got the final season of The Next Generation on DVD. Wanna watch some with me later?" she asked, tapping her toe on the floor behind her.

"That...sounds cool but, I promised Sky I'd help her move some things from her garage. Sorry, Lorry."

"Aw no that's cool," Skylar jumped in with her trademark here-comes-trouble smile. "I'll get Roberto to help me, or Casey. They're both free today, I think."

J.D. sent her a hidden glare of annoyance. "Great."

Lorry offered him an almost nervous smile. "So you'll watch?" she asked hopefully.

J.D. sighed. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

Lorry grinned gratefully. "Awesome! Is there anything I can help you out with around here?" she offered.

"Just...go rearrange the merchandise or something," the Asian replied in a mumble.

Skylar giggled as the excited girl bounced away. "You two are so cute."

"Wha- we are not!" J.D. protested, his face going slightly pink.

The tour-guides' giggle turned into a full-blown laugh. "Are to. Even B thinks so, huh?" Skylar elbowed her friend.

Berta looked a bit taken aback at being included in the taunting, but her lips twisted into a grin. "I take pride in knowing everything that goes in this valley; even I can tell you enjoy spending time with Norvel."

"I _put up_ with her," J.D. snapped adamantly before stalking back to his personal quarters.

Skylar exchanged a knowing grin with Berta. "Definitely perfect for each other."

Berta chuckled lightly. "So, Skylar, you have any tours today?" she asked.

"Well, I was _supposed_ to have one this morning," Skylar replied, her face drooping to a look of disappointment and coming boredom. "But the family's kids got sick so they canceled. What about you? Any classes or are you just wanderin' around the valley lookin' for somethin' to blow up?"

Berta gave the younger woman a glare. "I don't have any classes for two days," she informed.

"So you wanna do somethin'?"

"I've been planning to take a look at the seismos around the valley," the survivalist responded. "You could give me a hand," she offered.

"Cool!" Skylar jumped off her stool and headed for the door. "Can I drive?"

* * *

"Is it just me, or is suddenly hotter than it was two minutes ago?" Skylar asked, looking up from the seismo and glaring at the unforgiving sun.

Berta sighed. "Stop complaining. I let you drive so I could avoid that."

Skylar rolled her eyes good naturally but her voice was serious. "I mean it, B. The air temperature just jumped like, ten degrees. You can't say you didn't feel that."

"Well, yes, but I didn't think much of it," Berta said. "The desert's temperature does occasionally fluctuate."

"_Ten degrees_ in _two minutes_?" Skylar asked doubtfully.

"You know, maybe it was just you," Berta offered.

"Whatdya mean?" Skylar asked, lost.

"Like a hot flash," Berta shrugged with the smallest grin.

Skylar looked at her with a teasing huff. "_I'm_ not the old woman here."

Berta glared at Skylar over her sunglasses, scowling. Skylar just grinned.

* * *

Berta gently took a seismo out of the ground, turning it over to inspect it. It was the last one to check and Skylar had left Berta to check it herself, since she was absolutely convinced she'd seen something glinting a ways up the hill and wanted to check it out. Berta looked over the familiar device intently, going through her routine check before deciding it was satisfactory and returning it to the ground. She stood back up, glancing around to locate Skylar.

The adventurous woman was nowhere in sight, but before Berta had a chance to call her, the air was shattered by a sudden, familiar, and terrified scream.

"Skylar!" Berta cried, heading towards the cry.

Her friend was clear down the other side of the hill, at the bottom of a ravine.

Berta began skidding down the side of the ravine. "Skylar! Skylar, are you okay?"

"Something grabbed me!" Skylar said, scrambling to her feet and looking around quickly.

` Berta slid down next to the tour guide. "You're not hurt, are you?"

Skylar shook her head distractedly. "Did you see it?"

"Negative," Berta responded. "Did you?"

"Well," Skylar paused. "Not exactly. But I definitely _felt_ something, something _big_."

"Well, let's get outta here," Berta said. "We don't want whatever it is coming back."

* * *

Loretta sat on the floor of the store, folding and rearranging various t-shirts. The young woman started at sudden noise at the back door. She slowly put the shirts back and stood up. Lorry walked to the back door, curious but cautious.

Looking outside, she couldn't see anything, but several empty boxes were lying on their sides a ways from their usual neat stacks. The sci-fi fan glanced around, still not seeing anything. She shrugged to herself, stepping outside to fix the boxes.

"Hey Lorry!" J.D.'s voice wafted out the door. "Have you seen my checkbook? I thought it was under the cash register but I can't find it."

"Uh, check the drawer underneath the register," Loretta suggested.

"Oh. Thanks!"

Smiling, Loretta turned back to her job; only to find that the box she had been about to pick up was moving seemingly by itself along the ground. She jumped back slightly, startled. The box kept moving away, inch by inch, and when she looked closer she could see that a small, indented path in the sand trailed behind it.

"J.D.!" she called, though trying not to be too loud, "Come look at this!"

"What?" J.D. poked his head out the back door.

"Look," Loretta said, pointing to the moving box.

J.D. followed her finger and frowned when he saw the self-moving box. "What the heck? Is that your invisibat?"

"I-I don't think so," she shook her head. "Those tracks aren't right. The invisibat has like, bird feet. That kinda looks like a snake."

"No offense, but I doubt a snake that could make such large tracks could fit inside such a small box," J.D. replied dubiously.

"And last time I checked, nothing else leaves tracks like that," Lorry responded, motioning to the straight marks in the sand.

"Yes, but that still doesn't explain where the snake is," J.D. pointed out again, beginning to think this was just an overreaction of Lorry's adventurous side again. He straightened up from the doorjamb and turned to head back in.

Lorry frowned to herself, disappointed. She wearily reached for the moving box, not knowing what to expect to find beneath it. As she lifted it away, she was shocked to find nothing, but dropped it when she felt something sharp sink painfully into her arm and she screamed.

J.D. jumped nearly three feet at the scream, whirling around and racing back outside to see Lorry being dragged across the ground by her arm, which was bleeding.

The young woman tried to wrench her arm from whatever was dragging arm, but it only seemed to make the grip stronger. "Help me!" she cried.

J.D. hurried over, grabbing her other arm and trying to kick at whatever was dragging her. He was surprised to find his foot actually connect with something.

Lorry wrenched her arm free the attacker as soon as its grip loosened and J.D. quickly pulled her back into the store, slamming the door behind them. He waited for a moment to make sure the...whatever it was...wouldn't try barging in before turning to inspect his friends' arm.

"Are you okay?" he asked, picking up the violated limb gingerly.

With her uninjured hand, she wiped the tears off her face. "I-I think so. Its teeth or whatever like hooked into my arm," she said, teeth gritted against the pain.

"Come on," J.D. helped to her feet. "We'll get you up to the lab, Casey'll have you fixed up in no time."

* * *

**Interesting, eh?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Oiyo oiyo...I stabbed my finger with the edge of the blade (not cut, stabbed, literally) of my pocket knife, and I keep catching the cut on random stuff. Shirt fabric, hair, another finger...you get the point. It's annoying.**

* * *

The redheaded scientist examined Loretta's injured arm, his brow creased with worry. "You're lucky, Lorry. I'm not a medical doctor, but I'm pretty sure this could have been a lot worse very easily," Casey informed.

"Do you know what caused it?" J.D. asked.

"Well, the wounds do seem consistent with Lorry's account of snake-like tracks," he responded a bit distractedly as he finished bandaging the wound.

Lorry grinned a bit at J.D. "I told you it was a snake," she said pointedly.

The store owner only frowned at her.

"Hey, Case?" the scientists' African friend and assistant poked her head around the gray screen that served as a wall. "You might wanna come take a look at this."

"What is it, Reagan?" Casey asked, following the woman into the other part of the lab.

"Trouble," Reagan said simply, pointing at the computer that showed the results of Loretta's blood test. "I found the DNA of what bit her. Snake and-"

"-Chameleon AND genetically altered Mooneyes!" Casey exclaimed.

"Genetically altered….mooneyes?" J.D. asked, confused.

Casey glanced at him. "A predatory fish. These seem to have been changed to enhance the reflective aspect of their scales, probably in the lab."

"Which may account for them being "invisible"," Reagan added.

"That's pretty cool," Lorry said. "But... Kinda scary."

"Is it poisonous?" J.D. asked worriedly.

Reagan shook her head quickly. "No. But it doesn't really need to be. Going by your description of the attack and the size of Lorry's wound, they're probably big enough and strong enough to kill their prey with their jaws alone. If they aren't interrupted."

Lorry shifted uncomfortably at the thought.

"We're going to have to tell Berta," Casey said, "See if there are more than one of these things around."

* * *

"You've gotta be kidding me," Skylar moaned, leaning despondently against the front of Berta's power wagon and glaring at the engine.

"What's the matter with it?" Berta asked, clearly frustrated.

Skylar sighed heavily and slid down to the ground with her back to the truck. "Damn battery is completely fried. Not sure _how_, but it is. And I know for a fact you don't have an extra one, so don't bother looking. We're not going anywhere."

Berta squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Roberto took my back up again, didn't he?"

Skylar just threw a glance at her as if asking if that was really a question.

"Let's radio for assistance," Berta sighed, pulling out her radio.

"_**Hey, Berta, Skylar, you there?"**_ J.D.'s voice came through the walkie, beating her to the punch.

"Berta here, over," the survivalist responded.

"_**Oh, good. Listen, we think there's something new in the valley."**_

"Oh really?" Skylar muttered sarcastically under her breath.

"_**Loretta got attacked by it, nearly lost her arm,"**_ J.D. continued, making both woman stare at the radio in horror. _**"Don't worry, she's fine, but according to Casey it was just a lucky chance. Apparently these things don't have any problem killing their prey with brute strength. On the bright side, they don't have any venom."**_

"Wait," Skylar jumped up and snatched the radio from Berta's hand before the older woman had a chance to reply. "J.D., would you mind telling us exactly what this creature _is_ before rambling on about it?"

_**"Snake- most likely anaconda-, chameleon, and a genetically altered Mooneye,"**_ Casey's voice replied through the radio. _**"That's a kind of predatory fish. I believe it was altered in the lab to increase the refractive ability of their scales."**_

"Refractive ability?" Skylar asked, sharing a puzzled glance with Berta. "You mean like...invisibility?"

_**"In theory, yes,"**_ Casey responded. _**"Especially given the natural camouflaging capabilities of the chameleon."**_

Berta took her walkie back from Skylar. "Casey, we think we've had a run in with one of these. But we can't get back; the battery in my power wagon is dead."

"_**You did?"**_ Reagan had joined the conversation. _**"What happened? You're not hurt, are you?"**_

"We're fine," Berta assured. "Neither of us got hurt. You sure Lorry is all right?"

"_**She's fine,"**_ J.D. assured. _**"She's got quite the bite on her arm but as long as it's taken care of it should be fine."**_

Skylar winched. "Good thing mine didn't feel like using its fangs."

Berta nodded at that. "Could you send someone out here to jump-start us?" she asked.

"_**I'll try and get ahold of Roberto or Hailee,"**_ J.D. said. _**"They'll be closer."**_

"Thanks," she said. "Berta, out."

* * *

Skylar let out a long, hefty sigh of utter boredom. She was bored, hot, bored, and hot. "What on earth is takin' 'em so long? I know Roberto's slow sometimes, but really!"

Berta just shrugged, the heat also getting to her. She pulled at her shirt uncomfortably before realizing something. "Skylar, I think it just got hotter again."

The tour guide looked up from where she was laying in the bed of the truck. She hadn't been paying much attention, but now that Berta mentioned it, it _had_ suddenly gotten much, much warmer.

"That's a bigger jump than last time," Skylar said, keeping her voice low as she sat up and moved to look over the edge of the bed. Her hand had barely touch the metal surface when she suddenly snatched it back with a cry of pain.

Berta turned around in her seat, shocked and worried. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Skylar held out her hand, wincing as she did so. Part of her palm was bright red, as if she had just placed it onto a burning stove.

Berta scowled at the wound. She pulled out a canteen of relatively cold water. "That's not good, and really strange," she observed. She slowly poured some of the water on the burn. "This should stop it from getting worse."

"I guess it makes sense," Skylar said. "If they reflect light they reflect heat too. Like a metal building. There must be a lot more this time."

Berta nodded, peering over the side of the truck at the ground. "Affirmative," she said, snake-like tracks appearing all around them.

"So now what?"

"Hope they stay down there," Berta mumbled.

Skylar threw her hands up in exasperation. "Well _now_ they won't! Nice goin', B."

Berta sent her a glare. "You are too superstitious."

"It's not superstition when it happens _every single time_! I mean, haven't you noticed how every time we say we _hope_ something doesn't happen, it ends up happening?"

Berta just sighed, anxious as she leaned back in her seat. Silence fell on them. For all of one minute.

The truck suddenly jolted as if something had slammed into it, causing Skylar to slide sideways and Berta to fall into the other seat.

"What the-!?" the survivalist shouted, quickly trying to get her bearings. "There is no way those things are that strong! Is El Blanco around?" she said, checking her wrist seismo, but he wasn't anywhere near.

The truck rocked again and Skylar caught a glimpse of reflecting sunlight near one of the tires. "I don't think it's E.B.!" she shouted, clinging to the side to keep from being thrown around as another, harder hit bounced the vehicle on its wheels.

"These things are going to flip us!" Berta shouted. "We are going to have to make a run for it!"

"Is it ironic that I actually don't like that idea?" Skylar asked before leaping off the truck and racing after her friend.

She overtook her easily, running just in front and looking for cover. Glancing back over her shoulder she could see five- no, _nine_ lines in the sand chasing them. "Any idea where we're going?!"

"There!" Berta said, pointing to a small cave, set into a rock face about six feet off the ground.

Skylar raced ahead and vaulted herself up, gripping the edge of the cave with her hands. Almost immediately white-hot pain shot up her arm from the burn and she almost fell back to the ground again. Instead she gripped tighter and swung herself in, turning to grab Berta's hand and pull her to safety.

Berta grabbed Skylar's hand, heaving and scrambling up into the cave. The invisible snakes were right behind her, and she could feel the rush of air from jaws snapping just beneath her feet.

They collapsed on the cool floor of the cave, panting for breath. "Think they can climb?" Skylar asked between pants.

"Not that sheer of a side," Berta breathed.

"Wonderful."

They lay there for several minutes, waiting. But there was no sign of the snakes.

Berta pulled out her walkie. "I'm going to try radioing them again," she mumbled. "J.D.? Casey? This is Berta, over."

Skylar crawled back to the entrance to peer out, watching the sand for movement. Behind her, Berta called again and again, but it soon became apparent that no one was going to answer. Skylar looked back at her friend in worry.

"You don't think those things attacked them too, do you?"

"I don't know." Berta nodded to the outside. "Are they gone?"

Skylar turned back to stare at the ground. "I can't tell. There's too many lines to see if they've gone back or anything. And-" she suddenly cut off, her eyes widening.

"What is it?"

"I…..think we're in their nest."

* * *

**Oop. O-O Nestsssssssssss. Wonder what happens next? Honestly, I do, it's been awhile since we've worked on this one, I can't remember what we've written for the third chapter so far...**


End file.
